


A Cruel Symphony

by redhoodiee



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Child Death, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Jason is very wise, M/M, Minor Character Death, Older Characters, Sad, Suicide, jaydick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 22:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoodiee/pseuds/redhoodiee
Summary: The sounds of car horns and chatter composed Gotham’s symphony, and the blue and black clad hero desperately wished for a new song each night.A melancholy chord played through the air. “I’m going home, Jason. Permanently."





	

The moonlight from the crescent shape high in the black abyss shined against blue armor, electrifying like a shock of lightning in a city that drained away so much color. Nights like these brought out the loud chirping of crickets if you were lucky enough to hear their song above the sleepless streets. Neon lights illuminated the roads with pink and blue hues that seemed grayed and faded in the dingy alleyways filled with dirt and huddled bodies searching for comfort as they slept. Sapphire eyes took in the moving cars, the strolling people, the changing street lights, the closing shops. The sounds of car horns and chatter composed Gotham’s symphony, and the blue and black clad hero desperately wished for a new song each night.

Eyes shifted to an open window on the apartment across from him, the bricks crumbling and window rusty. The drapes rustled slightly with the warm breeze that sweetly caressed the hero’s face. But he listened, listened for something he thought he had heard. Suddenly, a horrified shriek was heard, and a gunshot went off, the unfortunate familiar chorus of Gotham’s corrupt composition. Light emitted from the room, and the hero was gone, running off the rooftop and latching himself onto the old fire escape stairs outside the window. Through the open window he leapt in to find a gruesome sight, the unwanted usual visuals that always accompanied the horrific symphony that was a Gotham night.

A woman laid in bed, blood soaking the stark white sheets slowly crawling across the bed from the newly acquired hole to the head. Nightwing held his breath as he looked at the assailant, a terrified expression in his eyes that held a heavy weight, an exhausted look, but with an insane glint. While looking, he felt a piece of himself almost relate to this man. Almost.

The man wore blue boxers, and a t-shirt that was more than likely white at some point. He was balding, a little heavy set. In his left hand he held a gun to his head, the end getting lost in his brown hair. The other hand held a gun to a small boy’s head, tears streaming as his presumable father held a murder weapon to his temple. Shivering like a leaf in the wind, the boy let out a small sob, and locked eyes with the hero. His eyes reflected the world’s biggest fears, and they pleaded for help as they drowned in the current situation. 

Holding his hands above his head, Nightwing attempted to communicate that he wasn’t looking to do any harm tonight. He just needed to interrupt the symphony before it got to the next part. “Hey, it’s alright. Let’s put the guns down.” His voice was light, heavily laced with concern.

The man twitched and shook his head, and he began to cry. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” The whisper was barely audible, dripping with pain and desperation. Desperation to leave the orchestra hall and never hear the symphony again.

The gong was hit faster than Nightwing could move, and the flutes flaired as fresh blood swept across the carpet like a tsunami. The hero screamed, screamed for the lives he just saw go, the lives he didn’t save. He moved to the child, couldn’t have been more than ten years old, dressed in baseball themed pajamas. A shaking hand raked through the acrobat’s ebony hair, a shuddery breath escaping his dry lips. Violently ripping off the mask, he let out a yell of despair, anger, failure as his cheeks grew wet, eyes glassy full of the stuff that could easily turn good men into their own worst enemies. He stood, a hand gripping the back of his neck as he turned away from the bodies lying lifeless at his feet.

Out the window he went, leaving a police tracker for the men in blue to find within the next ten minutes. Back to the rooftop he went, sitting at the ledge, eyes never moving from that open window like they were the glue keeping the building standing upright. Trumpets screamed in his ears as the next movement began, blue and red lights reflecting in the despair-filled blue orbs watching from above. Men in blue and white uniforms came out of their respective vehicles, running into the apartment building desperate to save lives that even one of Gotham’s personal angels couldn’t save. The thought made the vigilante scrub at his face, and he had to turn away from the sight.

He stalked toward a metal air-conditioning structure, pulling his fist back and hitting it with all his pent up anger and disappointment. His failure. His arm stung in pain, but he repeated it over and over and over until he couldn’t feel his fingers, until he knew his knuckles were bleeding beneath the black gloves, until the red covered the blue of the finger stripes.

When a hand gripped his wrist before he could make another blow to the metal structure, Dick whipped his head around to see a larger man there, clad in a motorcycle jacket and a red helmet. The hurt in Dick’s eyes, the wild furry and raging sadness fighting for dominance in his facial expression, had to be apparent when the larger man before him hesitated just slightly.

“Are you trying to break your wrist, Dickhead? Because if you are, you’re doing an A+ job.” Jason began, letting go of his wrist. He watched as Jason reached behind his head, opening the latch that allowed him to remove his helmet. Putting it under his arm, the crescent in the sky reflected off the shine of it, the red imagery a painful reminder of the night’s events. The crescent was probably laughing, seeing the futile attempts of a man trying to change a world that doesn’t want to be changed.

Dick just looked at Jason and a choked sob escaped his lips before he turned, giving the younger a glimpse of his back. 

Walking toward the edge, it appeared as though Dick was going to jump, leave without a trace until Jason ran into him months in the future. It made Jason’s heart clench in a way that embarrassed him, and thankfully the grip on his ticker loosened as Dick instead sat on the edge, legs dangling over the streets below. Jason sat beside him, making sure to leave a few inches between them.

They sat in silence for a while, and Jason could tell Dick was trying to compose himself. He wasn’t crying, but he could read people well, and knew there was something wrong, deeply wrong.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” He began after several minutes. Dick was quiet for a few moments before he spoke.

“Do you ever,” he paused and began again, “do you ever just ask yourself what we’re doing?”

Jason was a little taken back at the question, expecting something more along the lines of witnessing a puppy being physically abused or something like that, not a sort of philosophical question on their more-than-strange nightly activities.

“Sometimes.” Jason answered honestly. He questioned a lot, Batman’s moral code, the flaws, his own, his impact. But now wasn’t the time for his questions.

“I just don’t think I can do this anymore.” Dick looked away from him, his gaze distant as his eyes overlooked Gotham, sounds of police sirens taking their usual role in the music as the night grew later.

The blue eyes saw gray, only gray as they scanned the city, searching for something, anything, any sign that could help him. When he didn’t find anything but the normal corruption and mannerisms of Gotham that he so loathed, his eyes moved to his left and met shocking green orbs that held a calm look. He wished he could be that calm, but he hasn’t been in a long time.

Starting again, Dick averted his eyes and instead rested them on his hand that throbbed painfully in his lap. “What difference do we truly make? There’s still so much corruption, so much hate in the world. So much that we can’t fix. And I’ve been trying for years to get rid of the evil, but nothing has changed.”

There was a sigh next to him, and he could see a sad smile on Jason’s face. “That’s the thing, Dick. We can’t get rid of it, there’s evil in everything, and it’s up to everyone to fight that evil, whether it be their own inner evil or someone else’s evil. We can only fight it, set an example, and make sure one person’s evil can’t affect anyone else.”

Dick laughed a sadistic laugh at this, his head naturally going to the window where the police were now searching, completing a full investigation on a murderer they could never bring to justice. “And if we fail at that? Because I’ll tell you, I failed spectacularly tonight.”

“Shit happens, we aren’t gods. It’s rough for sure, but we just have to keep pushing on.”

“But what if I’m done pushing? I can’t waste my life anymore on a case that’ll never be wrapped up, never end.” He pushed himself up and began to pace on the rooftop. Jason just turned his head to watch, remaining on the edge of the rooftop. “Jesus Christ, I’m already forty-five years old and I’m still trying to save a world that doesn’t want to be saved. I’ve wasted a good half of my life trying to move an immovable object!”

Dick was starting to get hysterical, hands gripping at his hair and a baffled tone in his voice that brought a nervous laugh at the end of his sentence.

“God, I’ve lived through the deaths of almost every single person I’ve ever cared about, witnessed countless murders, rapes, hate crimes, domestic violence, gone against some the world’s greatest psychopaths, had my life ruined more than once, the list can go on. I’ve worked with a man who’s like a father to me who dressed like a bat at night, and I’m just as bad. And what the hell are we doing? I’m sick and tired of this.”

Jason met Dick’s eyes, and he could see streams of tears cascading down from the sorrow and loss in them. He stood up and walked over to the crying man, gripping his shoulders and squeezing lightly in a sign of comfort.

“I get that, I do. I’ve had the same thoughts before. I have about two people in this entire goddamn world that I know I really care about and they care about me. I go home each night to an empty apartment and ask ‘is this fucking it?’ But I’ve realized we’ve made a difference, Dickie. I realized we’re here for a reason, trained for a reason. When I came back to Gotham after I died I was angry. Mad at the world for bringing me back to this hellhole, mad at Bruce and mad at that fucking clown, but after I calmed down, after I did some self reflecting I realized this was a second chance. People usually don’t get those. And I’m here to help all the people I can. That’s why you’re standing here, Dick, a grown man dressed in full armor ready to save and protect the people that need it.”

“But it never ends! So why should I waste another minute running across rooftops when I could stop and just live my life. For god’s sake I work as a damn police officer and haven’t had a true relationship in years. I can’t even settle down now, it’s too late for me. My open window closed a long time ago because I was too caught up in all of this.” Dick never broke eye contact with Jason as he poured out his heart, the younger doing his best to hold it all together.

“No one is telling you that you need to stay in the field. But I’m telling you that everything you’ve worked for since you were just a dumb kid in green tights wasn’t all for nothing. It was never for nothing.” And suddenly there were violins playing as the wind picked up a little, tousling their hair.

“You’ve inspired a lot of people, me included. Look at all the people you know, you’ve inspired them all in some way, and they’ve gone out and made a difference because of you. Never think anything you’ve done would ever just be forgotten or be in vain. Never.”

Dick sniffled a little, his eyes now looking at the ground, and Jason heard a small, breathy laugh come from him before he looked back up. “Never knew you felt that way, Jaybird.”

And there was a smile, small like the light twinkling sound of wind chimes. A smile that made Jason smile and blush like he was a kid again. He had to avert his eyes before his ears grew red hot, too. “Of course, I’ve always admired you. Always strived to,” a pause, a gulp, “be like you.”

The smile on Dick’s face didn’t fade, and for that Jason was glad. His face held a similar warmth again, one Jason knew well from years of interacting with the emotional man. Dick’s eyes closed slightly, and Jason’s heart lept at the sight of the light crinkles at his eyes, the lines around his mouth from years and years of smiling. Seeing Dick in the depressed state he was in now wasn’t him, it wasn’t natural. It made Jason sick to his stomach.

“Thank you, that’s very flattering.” Dick thanked. He stepped back a little from Jason, and the younger found himself missing the warm he had just held in his hands.

The key changed and a melancholy chord played through the air, enough to make Jason almost petrified to stone as he watched Dick reach for his grappling hook. But he took that step forward, following after the tired acrobat. A sigh was drawn from Dick’s lips as he heard Jason shuffle forward. “I’m going home, Jason. Permanently. You can come if you want, there’s some left over food in my fridge if you want.”

An opening. “Yeah, I’ll come.”

Almost half a century later, and Dick Grayson was still able to make flying look possible. His body fought, fought everything from the gravity vainly trying to pull him down, to the symphony trying to cease his interruptions of the morose masterpiece. Something inside Jason broke a little at the realization that it had worked, something had finally been able to pluck Dick Grayson, trained acrobat, vigilante, and superhero from the skies he once owned. Landing on the rooftop of Dick’s apartment building, Jason knew that’d be the last time he saw Dick fly. The last anyone would see him fly possibly forever.

Dick opened the hatch that led directly to his apartment, Jason following suit. They were in a training room, one that was probably marked as a bathroom or something on the building’s blueprints. Turning off his armor’s security, Dick began peeling off his costume, black and blue shedding to the floor to reveal a man, an adonis if Jason was being honest. Sure, Nightwing was Blüdhaven and Gotham’s hero, but the real hero was Dick. If he was really being honest with himself, Jason knew Dick was the person he admired truly in life. The way he so helplessly fought for half of his life just for the little guy, the way he risked it all for a city that only spit in his face at the end of the day.

It was silent as Dick changed, Jason turning to give him privacy as he threw on a shirt and sweatpants that were laid out for his return home. Jason only turned back when he heard the opening of the wall compartment where Nightwing’s arsenal was.

The lights from the closet illuminated the slightly dark room, and with Dick’s back toward him, Jason could only see the way it reflected off his ebony hair. The blue of the suit looked piercing in the light, like it was fighting, pleading for another night, not to be locked up forever in a shrine for a hero that once was. Only the lightest of sniffles could be heard as Dick finished putting away the suit and weapons. Jason didn’t dare to move as Dick stared at his costume like it was a body in a casket. Many minutes passed before Dick moved. He solemnly pressed the button to close and lock the secret doors, turning to face away as silent tears rolled down his cheeks and another hand raked through his locks.

The high notes of a piano could be heard playing as green eyes locked with blue, and as quick as they locked, they moved. Dick made his way towards the door, and Jason just couldn’t bare it any longer. 

All at once time slowed to a crawl. All that could be heard was a thumping loud and hard from the base drum as Jason grabbed for Dick’s arm. Confusion etched across the man’s face, eye brows raising slowly. His slightly long hair swayed toward Jason as he turned, the shine beautiful from just the moonlight coming through the lone window in the room.

And all at once time sped up again, and lips smashed lips as the horns blared. Hands moved to grip faces, and chests grew closer. Fingers lightly stroked cheeks, feeling wetness from tears, stubble from light beards. It was silent as a breath was shared between the two and eyes were acquainted with one another once more.

“You need to know this doesn’t make you weak. This isn’t a choice that would make people see you any different. The fact that you’re able to walk away is more heroic than anything I’ve seen in years.

“Every night people go out on the streets, looking for their next fix. Because in their minds tonight’s the night, maybe they’ll finally catch that dragon, maybe they’ll finally finish this never ending case. But sometimes it’s too much, and while chasing that dragon they get themselves killed. Then it’s just another funeral, another grave, another brave soldier lost in the field. But this, this is different, Dick. You’re going out as more than a soldier, you’re a goddamn general who knows it’s better to walk away than to die.

“And trust me, dying for the cause is a lot less rewarding than it’s cracked up to be.” A sad sigh. “Listen, this isn’t the end. You need to know how many lives you’ve affected, how many people you’ve truly influenced. Every single person you’ve ever met will definitely honor you, carry on your legacy. This may be Nightwing’s last night on the case, but that doesn’t mean his influence ends here, too.

“Dickie, I-” He’s cut off with a kiss, so powerful that it has Jason feeling a familiar pricking at his own eyes as he feels tears from Dick’s fall onto his own cheeks. There was a weak feeling in his chest as he kissed the man he had yearned so long for. After he passed his prime, Jason thought his chance was gone, but this moment, he could tell, meant something. Meant he was wrong to think that years ago.

Dick pulled away first, holding Jason’s head in his hands, foreheads together as he shut his eyes and just breathed. He pecked another kiss to Jason before enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug. There seemed to be no more quiet sobs from the man in Jason’s arms, an observation that put a grin on his tired face.

Arms extended out, holding Jason in place, eyes preventing him from moving a muscle. “Thank you. I needed that. But why now? Why do this all now?”

“Well I’ve always heard that when one door closes, another one opens.” Jason smiled sheepishly, hoping he was reading the situation correctly, hoping those violins that had played in his ears weren’t lying to him.

He received a heart-warming smile, one that knocked any doubtful thoughts clear out of his mind. There was an eager nod before he was pulled into another sweet kiss.

“Well does this ‘open door’ maybe want to stay for a late night dinner?” There was a bit of playfulness in Dick’s remark, but a hint of fear, rejection possibly. “I don’t have much. In all honesty my fridge looks like something you’d find in a college guy’s dorm. Heh, it’s like I never escaped my twenties. You’d think…” And he’s rambling, rambling like when a middle school boy tries to talk to his crush in the hallway to impress his friends. And really, Jason thinks it’s just adorable.

Jason stops him with a chaste kiss. “Yeah, that sounds great.” And Dick just beams, brighter than any of the stars Jason had ever seen, ever wished upon in the early hours of the day when he believed he may be alone in his life forever. But he finally found his light, and if he’s lucky he’s going to hold it tight, and make sure that it never goes out.

And as they exit the room, the piece ends with a melodious chord from the entire orchestra, a decrescendo into sweet silence as the conductor closes his book to open another one.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading:)


End file.
